Artists: David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin
Exhibition title: [i land]
Venue: Albert Baronian, Brussels, Belgium
Date: March 12 – April 18, 2015
Photography: Images courtesy of the artists and Albert Baronian
From 12th March to 18th April 2015, Albert Baronian will exhibit a new series of works by the young French-Belgian duo David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin whose radical and brilliant minimalism once again delineates confinement and waiting. A barely sketched outline or by contrast a carefully mapped in the true, concrete and frightening sense of the term with Cosmographia (Gorée Island), 2015. A mad and monumental piece which physically archives the contradictory reality of the island to better organise its kidnapping. Synonymous with tourist escape in the 20th century, the island is primarily a desolate, deserted and cut-off place. A small prison territory, used as such to exclude undesirables, store them like more or less dangerous or perishable merchandise according to the times.
Alcatraz, St Hélène and Gorée comprise a geographical and symbolic corpus with a double meaning, between evasion and confinement, which Brognon & Rollin decided to go and trace out full-scale and on site, starting with Gorée (Senegal). As an island that is a symbol of the trafficking and imprisonment of men by mankind, Gorée is also home to the House of Slaves. Centimetre by centimetre, spanning 8 days, the 2,2 km outline of the island was reproduced on paper, put in an envelope and sent to Brussels to be stored and classified, using an archiving system chosen by the artists.
A total of 3.064 geographical fragments and prison escapees before being reincarcerated and sealed in a merciless stainless steel shelving unit. Alongside Cosmographia (Gorée Island), five new pieces will be presented at Albert Baronian dealing with the young duo’s obsessions.
